Tag Archives: media

Marvin Lewis has been in the NFL for decades, or more than enough time to witness the concussion issue move to the front burner. So when the Cincinnati Bengals head football coach was asked in a press conference earlier this week about the well being of Bengals Linebacker Vontaze Burfict, who suffered a concussion in each of the first two weeks of the season, he didn’t mince words.

“Well, he had a concussion against Atlanta. That’s that biggest concern that way,” Lewis said. “You don’t want him to have, you know, but again I coached defenses and linebackers for a long time and concussions didn’t linger. Now we have found that because of the media and things they seem to linger longer. There’s a lot of attention paid to it. I don’t know why they linger longer. I don’t remember them lingering like they do now.”

The words of James Allen resonate with a couple of physicians north of the border.

Dr. Neil Craton and Dr. Oliver Leslie, both out of Winnipeg, wrote an article in the current edition of the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, which suggests a misdiagnosis of the concussions, and the role that a patient’s belief that he or she has a concussion may play.

They pointed specifically at the role of the media.

“It’s crazy. I think people are being harmed by the hype,” Craton, a physician for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers who has practiced sports medicine for 24 years and emergency medicine for six, told the Winnipeg Free Press.

“It’s a good-prognosis condition. There’s very little evidence of a bad prognosis for this condition. We need not fear. It’s like, relax. Take the tone down a little bit.”

Timothy Epstein, a partner and chairman of the Sports Law Practice Group at SmithAmundsen, LLC recently had an interesting post in a blog published by the Defense Research Institute that looked at the “unprecedented media coverage” around this year’s NHL playoffs and why that may be a problem because of increased awareness of the concussion problems in sports.

“Most of the commentary has centered on a perceived lack of consistency in officiating and enforcement, and of course, at the center of all of this is the League’s concussion problem,” he wrote. “Last week, the League office drew heat after Nashville Predator’s Defenseman Shea Weber was not suspended for deliberately slamming the head of Detroit Red Wings Forward Henrik Zetterberg into the glass. Perhaps heeding these criticisms, the League responded this weekend with a three-game suspension for Carl Hagelin of the New York Rangers, after he elbowed the Ottawa Senators’ Daniel Alfredson, causing a concussion. Some commended the NHL for taking a tougher stance with the Hagelin suspension, but the repercussions handed down have been widely inconsistent. Given that the League has been beset by concussion concerns with its biggest stars such as Sidney Crosby, and in light of the brewing litigation against the NFL by its former players, the NHL would do well to establish a consistent and strict policy with respect to blows to the head.”